Sunday, October 12, 2014

It's been almost a year lol since I did a card report, I actually skipped 2013 Nationals tourney report, so I'll do a tl;dr catchup to the best of my ability.
tl;dr Phantom x2, Fatex2, first game 3 climax hand, squeak out at 3/6, second game destroy, third game destroy, fourth game lose, 3-1 lose the 4/16 lottery cut for top 8, gg "double elimination."

Anyway, none of us had played recently, some in like half a year, so we (Comic-z aka Ed, sumazndude aka ken, zaelar, angelofsol) played a lot of games in the last week to remember how to play. Everyone rusty as hell, misplays everywhere, not looking good! I was playing Rewrite until last Wednesday since I finally got my Kantai Collection cards, made a deck in a day, and then went 8-0 vs Comic and Ken with it with pure mindlessness, so I switched. It's a really different style than what I'm used to playing (gates, 1k 1souls, heals, huge changes, etc.) but it's extremely brainless. Basically it's Green Yellow anti everything HibikiHatsukazeShimakazeAkagi chain, I use Junyou, and not only that, I use FOUR Junyou. It also has an interesting level 0 make-a-runner gimmick with Kasumi where you ram other cards forward or put shit like Hatsukaze up front then have her reverse something so Hatsukaze comes back and you save card advantage, this helps since we're not running Inazuma. Testing this deck against my Rewrite was a fucking headache and showed me that I'm not nearly ready enough to play Rewrite at tourney, should have started training earlier but whatever.

Game 1: vs Kantai Collection B/G, Mario C, 2nd
Went 2nd, he was playing blue, his choice of 3 was Inazuma, which is a good choice if you're not playing yellow Kantai Collection. I don't remember too much except my climax spread wasn't that good, and when I had two cards left in library that I knew weren't climaxes I didn't Compass until after I had flipped them over so he rightly said I couldn't counter at that point when I was about to refresh. Anyway he did 8 damage or so in a single turn at level 2 cause of a two soul and somehow out soulrushed me, I didn't think his deck was better constructed though. He was getting climax fucked early too but I could not take advantage and the 8 swing was really severe and ended the game before I could really do anything. Other noteworthy thing was he ran Suzuyachange.
0-1

Game 2: vs Love Live Y, Johnny L, 2nd
Playing Love Live, I recognized most of the cards since my fraudulent proxy Love Live deck days besides the level 3s. Turn one he played 3.5k Umi that deck checks. On my turn I played Hibiki and Kasumi, 2k 1ed Kasumi to reverse Umi and do my level 0 card advantage runner gimmick. He started insisting the resting of the other character was a cost and that I could not rest the Hibiki again so I could not take advantage of Kasumi's effect. I objected very strongly, took out the English translation to show the Japanese wording, and called a judge. Obviously this card would not be played at all in Japan if you could not retreat an already rested character in the front row, the entire point is to make runners of other cards and keep card advantage.

【自】 このカードのバトル相手が【リバース】した時、あなたは他の自分のキャラを1枚選び、【レスト】し、後列のキャラのいない枠に動かす。

Hell, how does that even look like a cost, that's a fucking effect that happens cause I reversed one of his characters. Therefore you do it to the best of your ability, if she's already rested, who cares, you can't rest her, then you move her to the back. If she was reversed, you'd rest her, move her back too (that's the cooler way to use the card.) The reason I got sort of ticked is because he said I should know my own cards, except the ENTIRE PURPOSE I WAS PLAYING THE CARD FOR was being challenged. Anyway this ruling took 10 minutes lol, because the two judges over Skype doing the ruling actually disagreed with each other, but my ruling prevailed at the time. Rest of the game was formulaic, he got out 2 of the level 1 Eri, I didn't really care because this deck doesn't, so I just kept swinging with 0 costers and 1k 1 souls and he couldn't cancel. Anyway the most noteworthy thing about this game was the colossal misplay I did at level 3. Level 3 0 vs Level 3 4, I have two Akagis and I think level 2 sub, no climax though, and he had 2 climaxes in the midst of 5 cards. Instead of hitting for 2 3 times since he would take refresh damage, I played Junyou lol, and swung for 3, cancelled on 3rd, swung for 3 again, cancelled, swung and trigger so swung for 4, and he cancelled post refresh (so he was at 3/5). Then he almost killed me cause he played the level 2 Nozomis I ran in my proxy deck but I triple cancel lol. So yeah I fucked up but I still won..he should have been dead two turns ago. Honestly really bad play on my part, his deck and play were pretty good, but I feel like his deck would generally have a hard time against such a mindless deck like mines.
1-1

Game 3: vs Kantai Collection G/Y Shima/Akagi/Musashi, Leonardo F, 2nd
Going second again, my coin is really failing me. Shipgirl mirrors yay! This guy's deck was actually really close to mine, yellow green Akagianti-everythingShimakaze sequence. However, he ran Musashi, which I honestly think is the weakest of the choose 3, especially if you're running yellow. Junyou for life. Also ran Yahagi, which is a really good card, but my deck is really mindless at the moment so I don't even give myself the decision whether to clockcore or not. Anyway we slow play each other, he hits level 1 first, Shimakazes, I hit level 1 after, Shimakazes, etc. He's bringing back Akagis but I'm bringing back Junyous. At level 2 Junyou really kicks in, he eats a lot of damage to level 3, like almost a full level ahead. Doesn't matter that he can play 2 Akagis and Musashi and shoot my stuff to clock now, I have Akagi and my own climax in hand and the life difference is really large, I never need to clock again. Final turn is me just having to do 3 damage so I overplay Junyou and just climax combo. Here I misplay again because I had two Hatsukazes so my Akagi was actually 12.5K, equal to his Akagi, so she would have been shot to clock, since he insisted his was higher and I didn't do the math in time. Didn't matter but I really need to clean up my play.
2-1

Game 4: vs Nisekoi B/R, Tianyu W, 2nd
This game was...interesting. Interesting like last year's game vs Shining Force EXA interesting. Nonexistent level 1 game, nonexistent level 2, honestly I just had nothing to play, he did so much brainstorming and pendant moving and w/e and I couldn't draw anything at all, but the biggest kicker was 9 or so damage hit to 3/6 so I couldn't even clock. In the end I was at 3/6 with zero cards in hand, 1 stock, and only two Junyous on field, and I drew a Shimakaze climax and I said go. He damaged himself to level 3 (since he was at like 2/5) and played Marika. The end. Honestly I felt I didn't even lose to the deck, I just didn't get to play period. Of all the people I really wanted a rematch with this deck and this set, because I have zero experience with it and honestly I still have zero experience with it because I didn't have cards to play. There were no double attacks because 99% of the game I had no field in front. Sort of a really bad ender. I think this game also fucked over ken, who at the time was 3-1, and who had beaten 2nd place directly, because I think it raised the points of my opponent, so it raised the points of 2nd place as well (since he had beaten him) in the swiss rankings. 2nd place btw was as troll who ran Guilty Clowns and spoiled a lot of good players' days, but ken said he steamrolled him.
2-2 rip

So yeah rough for coming back to tourney Weiss, plus 2 spots for a 30 person tourney. Ken as usual does pretty well in these environments though. Myself, not happy with the way I played game 1 and game 2, the second could have very easily let him win. Game 4 was just whatever, that's Weiss. Hopefully way less misplays next qualifier, which is next week in Boston.

Postscript: Right, the final standings were Ken at 3rd at 3-1, missing out cause of Swiss points to Guilty Clowns even though he beat him straight up, I'm at 2-2, zaelar is at 2-2, AngelofSol at 2-2, and comic at 0-4 lol. Apparently comic got Weissed really hard, but shoutouts in particular to the Haruhi Aliens player who USED THE EVENT COUNTER ON COMIC'S STOCK SOUL CLIMAX aka it's not a continuous effect since it's not a +2 soul or +1K 1 soul aka YOU FUCKED UP.